Sample Letter to Edinburgh Councillor

To save you time writing to your Councillors, here is a sample letter you can copy and tailor to how you want to put your own point across. You can find out who your Councillors are by using this link. Councillor ??????????????? The City of Edinburgh Council City Chambers High Street Edinburgh EH1 1YJ Dear Cllr ????????? Edinburgh Budget Proposals 2015/16 I write to ask you to oppose the proposed increase in allotment rents which is part of the Council’s 2015/16 budget. Currently the total annual rental collected from all allotments across the city is £80,355. Most of this is used to pay for the allotment service and maintain existing sites. The rent of £100 per year was set by increases over the past five years - from £54 in 2009 to £100 in 2014. This increase was at the instigation of allotment holders themselves who responsibly wished to improve allotment provision in the city so that the ever increasing waiting lists may be reduced by creating new sites. This agreement also stated that rents would be fixed at £100 until 2020 when increases based on inflation increases would be acceptable. We now have the situation where allotments in the city pay for themselves. This is in contrast to most other cities where they operate at a net cost to the Council taxpayers. Now CEC want to increase their income from allotments by £150,000. That’s an increase from £80,000 to £230,000. Put simply - allotments are to become a method of revenue generation. This increase is unfair. It will mean that a small group of 1,429 citizens (many of them low waged or pensioners) will be required to pay an additional £105 per year, regardless of whether they have a half plot (almost half - 696 - do) or a full plot, or whether they receive a concession for being of pensionable age, or not. Allotments are important as they help CEC and the Scottish Government meet targets for social inclusion, healthy population and sustainability. They must be affordable and available to all sections of society. If this increase is allowed to happen allotments will exclude the very people they were created to help. We must allow allotments to remain within the reach of all members of our communities. I request your support in removing this increase from the budget. Yours etc